{Quick Tip} Considerations during a Dynamics 2016/Dynamics365 Upgrade

Are you a customer or you have a customer who is still on an old version of Dynamics CRM like CRM 4.0 or CRM 2011?

Are you planning to upgrade to either Dynamics CRM 2016 or Dynamics 365?

Are you migrating to the cloud directly (Dynamics 365 online) or you wish to upgrade first to an on premise version and have a vision to go to the cloud in the near future?

Since there has been so long that you have upgrade – do you wish to also re-engineer, re-design and improve your business processes along with the upgrade implementation?

This are some questions which frequently get asked around me on Upgrade assessments.

Here are some quick high level recommendations to consider before making the choice:

· Consider that between Dynamics CRM 4.0/ CRM 2011 there is gap of almost 4 versions to Dynamics 365 – CRM 2013, CRM 2015, CRM 2016 and Dynamics 365 (I have skipped mentioning the Service packs,

Update 1 or rollups of each version in between). This fact adds to technical complexity for the upgrade.

· It might seem very simple to add re-engineering, re-design and improvements to an Upgrade project but since there is no straight upgrade path, try and better understand the technical complexity involved.

· Understand deprecated features and ways to re-implement them. Understand that Deprecated features will result in re-design and re-design meets fresh development to maintain existing functionality.

· Understand that existing features might be able to be mapped to out of box features of Dynamics CRM 2016/Dynamics 365 and try and implement a re-design for such features which might mean fresh configurations or some development.

Doing this will help in giving longevity to your implementation on the latest platform.

· If you have tighter deadlines, skip the improvements and re-design wherever you can concentrate on the technical upgrade.

· Understand that Dynamics CRM 2016 Platform/Dynamics 365 platform has improved and usability has changed in multiple places. This will require proper User training and such effort needs to be incorporated into the Upgrade effort.

· In case you are upgrading to the cloud, this has impact on how technical implementation has been implemented and how CRM is administered. For instance, there is no direct database access in case of CRM online which you have readily available in CRM on premise.

Hope it helps and Happy CRMing as usual!

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